Kind of a ...weird? Dumb?...question, but how prevalent were fascist/anti-fascist themes in 60's British science fiction?

I definitely got a "hey, this is what happens when your goons turn on you" vibe from The Power of the Daleks.

It was kind of a perfect storm, depending on where in the decade you're talking about. Mon 'n' Dad would have seen everything first hand, and later on you can see the anti-authoritarianism when (mostly younger) people recognized similar things going on around them. Different medium, of course, but there's a reason Roger Waters chose the brownshirt/fascist/Nazi imagery in The Wall to represent authority figures in general.

Have you been doing The Prisoner, Cobi? I haven't checked the thread in a while.

EDIT - All right, new page. Let's turn this into the Prisoner Floyd thread!

After The War fucked around with this message at Nov 15, 2016 around 13:45

I'm pretty sure the beeb was chock full of strongly left leaning people at that time as well. Malcolm Hulke was a paid up member of the communist party until at least the mid 1950s, and this was the era of Burgess, Philby and Maclean when the establishment was chock full of people who's politics were as far from fascist as you could get.

It's just some stupid 60s British show about an unnamed, extremely clever, anti-authoritarian iconoclast exiled from home and struggling against the forces of tyranny, oppression, and conformity. With a theme song by Ron Grainger.

It's just some stupid 60s British show about an unnamed, extremely clever, anti-authoritarian iconoclast exiled from home and struggling against the forces of tyranny, oppression, and conformity. With a theme song by Ron Grainger.

You probably wouldn't like it.

Next you'll be telling me some giant nerdlord has started making audio dramas about it!

Saw Power last night. The animation took a bit to get used to, especially the animation errors like floating pockets and the companions clothes changing randomly then changing back. But when I learned from the bonus documentary after that they had a shoestring budget and only like six months to put this together, I was impressed.

Was a good story, though, and Troughton was great in what was his first outing as the Doctor.

She's a wonderful human being, and her and Peter together have been fantastic to watch.

Capbags (as no-one has lived to call him) is one of the very few actors who warms my crew-jaded heart, because he really does give a poo poo and is also lovely to deal with. Working on set while he rehearses the poo poo out his scenes all to himself is the biggest work perk by far.

Am I in the minority in feeling that Dr. Who is at its best when it's more towards the "Monster of the Week" format? Most of my favourite episodes are ones that are more concerned with telling an immediate, present story than with the development of a larger continuity, even when they take place within that continuity (eg, 11th Hour, Heaven Sent, Blink, The Empty Child).

Hey, Karn, what do you say to console someone who just got Thought Erased? You give up? "Need a hand?"

I didn't mind some of the arcs (seasons 5 and 9 spring to mind), but I think overall, it's better if the arcs are not intrusive, because what makes Doctor Who so good is that it can tell virtually any kind of story in which intellect and idealism win out over violence and cynicism, so restricting an entire season to any one genre/theme/story can really take the wind out of its sails.

Am I in the minority in feeling that Dr. Who is at its best when it's more towards the "Monster of the Week" format? Most of my favourite episodes are ones that are more concerned with telling an immediate, present story than with the development of a larger continuity, even when they take place within that continuity (eg, 11th Hour, Heaven Sent, Blink, The Empty Child).

I definitely agree. In fact, most shows that alternate Monster of the Week and Big Important Secret Plot™ are almost all better in their monster of the week episodes. The one notable exception, to me, is Fringe which was equally good in their MotW and Plot episodes.

Ok cool. One thing I said about Who (albeit not here, as far as I recall) that I've seen my friends start quoting is that it's at its best when it goes and does largely disconnected stories in randomly-selected settings, and it's at its worst when it tries to develop its own consistent universe of connected peoples and civilizations. Whereas, on the other hand, Star Trek is at its worst when it goes (to the holodeck) to do largely disconnected stories in randomly-selected settings, and it's at its best when it tries to develop its own consistent universe of connected peoples and civilizations.

Pretty cool they're bringing Munro back, since "Survival" almost feels like an episode of the current show.

Maybe it'll just turn out to be a multi-Doctor story with Ace and 7 back. It won't be, but that would be fun.

Also, it's great she's got another chance at it, because Survival didn't work out quite how she'd hoped. She envisioned a more toned serial with talented movement actors instead of the enormous muppett fur suits. I'm not normally huge on writers griping too much about execution, but she's really clear about thinking that the acting work in the episode is great, just that the costuming was way overdone. Hopefully she gets paired with a great director and is maybe working on a bottle episode.

Ok cool. One thing I said about Who (albeit not here, as far as I recall) that I've seen my friends start quoting is that it's at its best when it goes and does largely disconnected stories in randomly-selected settings, and it's at its worst when it tries to develop its own consistent universe of connected peoples and civilizations. Whereas, on the other hand, Star Trek is at its worst when it goes (to the holodeck) to do largely disconnected stories in randomly-selected settings, and it's at its best when it tries to develop its own consistent universe of connected peoples and civilizations.

A lot of the best Star Trek episodes are standalones, though, and their attempt at a consistent universe have lead to things like the Borg being made Very poo poo

Ok cool. One thing I said about Who (albeit not here, as far as I recall) that I've seen my friends start quoting is that it's at its best when it goes and does largely disconnected stories in randomly-selected settings, and it's at its worst when it tries to develop its own consistent universe of connected peoples and civilizations. Whereas, on the other hand, Star Trek is at its worst when it goes (to the holodeck) to do largely disconnected stories in randomly-selected settings, and it's at its best when it tries to develop its own consistent universe of connected peoples and civilizations.

I sort of disagree with your second point, honestly. DS9 is the definite exception to the rule, in that it's great because it takes all of the collected Star Trek canon and challenges it, but the bulk of the best episodes in TNG and TOS are actually the ones disconnected from existing Star Trek races or civilizations (The Inner Light, Darmok and Jalad, etc., etc.). Almost all of Voyager is bad, but it's at its worst when it tries to connect itself to the Star Trek Universe instead of standing on its own or showing us what weird stuff can exist in the other sector of the Universe. I'd also argue that a lot of what stunts Enterprise before it can even take off is being weighed down by about 40 years of "the Trek Universe."

I feel the same way about superhero stuff. I've enjoyed two of the Netflix shows, but I'm starting to get worried that before they have the chance to do something good and stand on their own, they're going to get bogged down by trying to connect with one another and become a franchise.

I like Doctor Who when it's subtle about it and when the connections are just nice little easter eggs incidental to the story. We don't have to know that the things in Gridlock are the Macra or that the Ood are from a system near the Sensorites to enjoy the story, nor does it feel like anything was forced just to build the Doctor Who rogues gallery; it's just a nice little reference for people familiar with the classic show.

Of course, there are other times when writers say "Hey, let's tell that one Cold War story with the Silurians again, just to bring them back and try out some new rubber suits!" or "Let's re-bottle the success of the weeping angels," but hey, what can you do.

A lot of the best Star Trek episodes are standalones, though, and their attempt at a consistent universe have lead to things like the Borg being made Very poo poo

The Borg are probably the best example, because they're a modestly good villain that first time, and only that at best, and then they become worse and worse Space Zombies every time they appear, with almost no improvement ever. It'd be like if Doctor Who changed the Cybermen to have "Excellent!" as a catchphrase and have a weakness to gold, or to shout "DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!"

Bicyclops fucked around with this message at Nov 16, 2016 around 21:10

The Borg are probably the best example, because they're a modestly good villain that first time, and only that at best, and then they become worse and worse Space Zombies every time they appear, with almost no improvement ever. It'd be like if Doctor Who changed the Cybermen to have "Excellent!" as a catchphrase and have a weakness to gold, or to shout "DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!"

A lot of the best Star Trek episodes are standalones, though, and their attempt at a consistent universe have lead to things like the Borg being made Very poo poo

Fair. I think that the comment about DS9 really hits what I meant, but early TNG episodes including the Ferrengi also hit on what I think of as peak Star Trek - stories and arcs that involve the difficulties of civilizations rubbing up against each other.

You're totally right about good standalones, and right that the show's baggage did weigh it down at times, too. The late TNG Borg/Lore episodes are baaaaddddddd.

e. I keep thinking about it and lots of good episodes merely give a sense of continuity where none or little actually exists. That's interesting. It's like "MAJOR FEDERATION ENVOY" comes and thing happens, and it's like "Oh man the Federation big wigs meddling again," but they're all actually throwaway characters. My point that stuff is still connected to a widder, consistent setting still stands, though, even if my generalization doesn't.

CommonShore fucked around with this message at Nov 16, 2016 around 22:27

Curious: Is there a list of all the "X of the Daleks" titles, including the audio/books/etc? I feel like it's 100% certain that somebody has compiled it already, but I couldn't find one.

ed: Bah, ctrl+f through a bigger list will suffice.

If you go to the wikipedia page for any individual televised Dalek story (Power of the Daleks, for instance), down the bottom you should be able to click to show a list of televised Dalek stories and a separate list of Dalek novelizations. Similarly, going to the wiki page for any individual audio Dalek story (Brotherhood of the Daleks, for instance) there will be a list down the bottom of Dalek audio stories.

So they're not all in one place, but you can get a working list from there.

There are a couple of good regular actors (some of them are quite bad as well though), and I admire some of its ambition, but for the most part it's...

well, it's messy and misjudged at best. At its worst it's just horrid and completely ill conceived -- as demonstrated by their decision to do a "disabled person is magicked with the ability to walk" plotline, and then cast an actually disabled actress to do it. What were they thinking -- on multiple levels.

If you go to the wikipedia page for any individual televised Dalek story (Power of the Daleks, for instance), down the bottom you should be able to click to show a list of televised Dalek stories and a separate list of Dalek novelizations. Similarly, going to the wiki page for any individual audio Dalek story (Brotherhood of the Daleks, for instance) there will be a list down the bottom of Dalek audio stories.

So they're not all in one place, but you can get a working list from there.

Didn't even think to look somewhere so obvious! I used the list on http://www.drwhoguide.com/who.htm but WP has a few extra from Dalek spin-off stuff, etc. For (my?) future reference, not counting different versions of originals (e.g. novelizations), in fairly arbitrary order:

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."